BELFAST — A Belmont woman has been indicted on a number of charges stemming from alleged illegal activities between Sept. 24 and Dec. 12, 2016.

Kari Drake, 39, first came to the attention of law enforcement when a Sweet Frog district manager reported the theft of more than $12,000 from the Belfast location.

Drake worked as the frozen yogurt chain’s Belfast store manager from July 2016 through December, according to court documents.

The manager reported that there had been a number of missing deposits from the store between September and December, and that when confronted, Drake gave a suspicious explanation, according to the court documents.

Drake reportedly told the manager that the missing deposits burned in a small fire at her home, according to an affidavit filed by Belfast Police Detective Gerald Lincoln.

Lincoln learned that Sweet Frog’s cash sales are set aside every day, minus $200 left in the register for the following day. The seven deposit bags, one for each day of the week, are then picked up by Brinks armored transportation at the end of the week, and deposited the following Monday.

Brinks confirmed with Lincoln the sealed bags were picked up on schedule, with the amount in each documented both inside and outside of the bag.

Although deposits had been made since Drake was hired in April 2016, until her employment was terminated Dec. 15, the deposits weren’t all accounted for every week. This continued until a total of 76 deposits were missing, police said.

Drake blamed a fire at her residence for the lost money when confronted by the manager, even sending a picture of a burned area of her home as evidence, according to court documents.

It is against Sweet Frog company policy for an employee to take any money home from the store. The manager told Lincoln that had the deposits burned in a fire, the deposit slips inside the bags would have burned, too, but Drake had given him the slips for the missing money.

After Belfast Police executed a search warrant of her residence, Drake reportedly admitted the story about the fire wasn’t true, and that the money had never actually been at the residence. 

She later told police that some of the cash had gone missing because various employees used petty cash without leaving receipts behind. Drake said she took approximately $2,000 to replace the money missing from the petty cash, according to the documents. She denied stealing any of the money.

Other employees of the store interviewed by police detailed a different working policy for petty cash, whereby they took the funds from the register, replacing them with a receipt. It was also learned Drake changed the nightly deposit procedure in July, making it so deposits went into a safe only she had access to, documents said.

After further investigation with Brinks, it was learned there were multiple occasions where no deposits were picked up for a given week. When they were picked up the following week, there would be fewer than the 14 deposits there should have been for the previous two week period, the court documents said.

The total amount allegedly stolen is listed as $14,570.70.

Erica Thoms can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com